In lieu of this week's interview episode, I'm proudly participating in #PodcastBlackout to protest the murder of George Floyd, police brutality, racism, injustice, and inequality.
I've spent the last few days going back and forth about what I "SHOULD" post this week and what type of episode I "SHOULD" create.
This concern about doing the "right thing" and awareness of my own image is one of the core issues of performative activism. It's ineffective and unsustainable.
In my effort to transition from "not racist" to "anti-racist" I'm focusing on what I CAN do to contribute, as a white person and ally, and making it less about how I'll be perceived if I make mistakes along the way.
Instead of spending this week learning about flexible work, I hope you’ll take the time to educate yourself and identify what you can uniquely contribute to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. This episode contains 6 actions I'm taking and resources I'm leveraging this week to help unlearn and become a better ally to the Black community.
Links to Resources:
About the show:
✨ Freedom Lifestyle is an online community and podcast series that empowers the movement towards flexible work. Sam Laliberte interviews remote workers, digital nomads and self-employed people who've pursued a lifestyle that allows them to work from anywhere. Sam discovers their version of the Freedom Lifestyle, learn how they got there and reflect on the impact its had. ✨
In lieu of this week's interview episode, I'm proudly participating in #PodcastBlackout to protest the murder of George Floyd, police brutality, racism, injustice, and inequality.
I've spent the last few days going back and forth about what I "SHOULD" post this week and what type of episode I "SHOULD" create.
This concern about doing the "right thing" and awareness of my own image is one of the core issues of performative activism. It's ineffective and unsustainable.
In my effort to transition from "not racist" to "anti-racist" I'm focusing on what I CAN do to contribute, as a white person and ally, and making it less about how I'll be perceived if I make mistakes along the way.
Instead of spending this week learning about flexible work, I hope you’ll take the time to educate yourself and identify what you can uniquely contribute to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. This episode contains 6 actions I'm taking and resources I'm leveraging this week to help unlearn and become a better ally to the Black community.
Links to Resources:
About the show:
✨ Freedom Lifestyle is an online community and podcast series that empowers the movement towards flexible work. Sam Laliberte interviews remote workers, digital nomads and self-employed people who've pursued a lifestyle that allows them to work from anywhere. Sam discovers their version of the Freedom Lifestyle, learn how they got there and reflect on the impact its had. ✨
podcast blackout: unlearning for white people
[00:00:00] hey, freedom seekers and potentially friends of freedom seekers who may have been sent this episode this week. We're doing things a little bit differently. Instead of the interview I had planned, I am proudly participating in podcast blackout to protest the murder of George Floyd, police brutality, racism, injustice, and inequality.
I've spent the last few days going back and forth about what I "should" post this week and what type of episode I should create. Should I release the episode I had planned, which was an interview. Should I not release anything at all, because everyone's talking about muting themselves and not taking up important online real estate.
Should I interview a black owned business owner and freedom seeker? Or should I do exactly what podcast blackout says and just have an episode reading out the names of lives we've lost. I've wasted all of this time, worrying about what people will think and what I should do and what is right. And this is at the core of performative activism.
Which I'll come back to in a second, but the fact that I've even had a couple of days to decide how I want to show up in the world is a fucking privilege. The fact that I was actually able to take the last two days off of work for the most part, to educate myself, to learn, to listen and to unlearn. As a privilege, I preached the freedom lifestyle and I embody it myself with the intention of being inspiring and empowering.
But the fact that I'm even able to achieve financial freedom and location independence in the first place is a fucking privilege. And the fact that I haven't acknowledged this issue on my show before proves that I have contributed to this systematic issue. Only 25% of guests on my show have been people of color and less than 1% have been black.
Calculating this number is uncomfortable. I'm questioning whether it's appropriate for me to say it and to share it. But I know for sure that I have to look head-on at how I've been part of the problem and how I haven't used this platform to its full potential. I am ashamed. I have not done a better job over the last few years, exploring the issues of race and culture and how they impact someone's ability to even pursue flexible work and their version of the freedom lifestyle in the first place.
Likely if I had had more diversity in my guests, That I selected for the show that topic would have come up more and I'm sorry, I want to do better. And this episode is not about me. So I'm going to shut up now and talking about myself. This episode is for my white peers who want to join me in actively becoming an anti-racist is not okay to just be not racist anymore, which is sorry to make it about me again, who I was.
This is an episode for my white peers who want to support the black community in a meaningful way. So instead of spending the week learning about flexible work, I hope you will take the time to educate yourself. I hope you'll also take the time to answer the question. How can I truly be of service right now?
What can I uniquely offer to contribute? Now we're going to go back to performative activism, which is a term that I learned about that. I've educated about myself over the last couple of days. It is so easy to participate in the trends on social media that we're seeing right now. It is so easy to reshare a post or to post a black square.
And now this part might be a bit triggering for my white peers. We all saw our feeds on Tuesday, fill with black squares. I'm sure many of you listening, shared one yourself all day. I felt uncomfortable and settled with the fact that I decided not to share a black square to me that did not feel aligned that did not feel meaningful.
That did not feel effective. That did not feel right. Like how I could uniquely make an impact and how I could uniquely contribute performative activism is an action that is rooted in what other people say you should do. It's rooted in managing how other people will see you and your awareness of how people think about you.
It's rooted in trying to be good. It's rooted in trying to be right while maintaining your status, your image and your comfort. Performative activism is not wrong, and this is not a call out. I've been guilty of it in the past as well. And I've been part of amazing group chats this week with my white peer friends who shared why they were posting the black square and the reasons were beautiful at the end of the day though, performative activism is ineffective and it's unsustainable. instead? I want you to ask yourself, what can you uniquely do? And know that a systemic issue like racism there isn't a right way. There is no should or shouldn't so worry less about what you should do and double down on what you can do. That's why I still wanted to create an episode this week. I wanted to recognize and be sensitive to the most important and pressing issues that are happening in the world.
And right now it's not about flexible work. I feel like by having a platform by being able to pay for the costs associated with having this show and market the show effectively and have a lifestyle that involves being pretty damn rebellious and saying no a lot and not listening to rules. That is a privilege.
I want to use this platform and use my voice. To create some good. And that is what I feel like I can uniquely do is to take personal action and to help other people and figuring out what their next step towards becoming anti-racist looks like. So if you're listening to this episode as a white person, and you want to educate yourself and contribute positively, there are so many amazing resources being shared online.
Right now. I encourage you to look at the black lives matter, hashtag and seek out your own. There's so many, there have been many forever, but now more than ever, are they getting visibility and they're being amplified. And that's amazing but in hopes of making this episode digestible and actionable and not overwhelming, because that's what I uniquely think that I can do is have a voice and share it and provide the next step for someone who's looking to make a change in their life. So I'm only sharing the resources that I am personally committed to leveraging this week and the action that I have taken and will be taken.
This week
before I share these resources, though, I do want to take a moment and say the names of just some of the lives that we've lost. The following is an incomplete list of black people who have been killed by police officers and hate crime in the past eight years alone.
Trayvon Martin was aged 17 when he died in 2012 Tamir rice age 12 died in 2014.
Michael Brown age 18 died in 2014. Sandra bland age, 28 died in 2015 freddie gray age 25 died in 2015. Doug Lewis, age 39 died in 2020 Briana Taylor age 26 died in 2020 George Floyd age 46 died in 2020.
As I've mentioned, this is definitely an incomplete list. And I encourage you to honor the names and say the names of those lost in your own unique way. now for the list of resources that I'm personally going to be utilizing this week and the action that I started to take and I'm committed to. if you want to join me in discussing some of these learnings or insights or sharing notes, after you consume some of this content or take these steps, I'm 100% here for that.
And I really think it's important that we have these conversations and that we commit and hold each other accountable to becoming better together.
one thing that I've done that I really encourage you to seek out is Trevor Noah. He's the host of the daily show. He created an 18 minute IGTV on why looting is actually a symbol of a breakdown in society. And it's not just a free for all. We've seen a lot of the, well, why does it have to be so violent and sharing the videos with disgust of people looting from big box stores.
Please watch this video to understand where this comes from. Second is I've been listening to shine brighter together. It's a podcast. The host is Monique Melton. She's an anti-racism educator and a published author. She recently released a two part podcast episode series on what anti-racism is and why you're not doing it.
I've just signed the black lives matter. Petition that's demanding, there be racial data on COVID-19 that's released and aggregated.
We already know that COVID-19 has been disproportionately impacting black people. However, what we didn't know is that the numbers are skewed quite lower than reality. And having this type of data. The real data. It actually shapes where funding and resources go. So it's very important that it reflects the truth.
And currently it does not. So I've included a link to that petition and I've already signed it
On Netflix, this one's a bit lighter. I am watching self-made. I chose this recommendation in particular, as I know. So many of my listeners love hearing stories of entrepreneurship and female entrepreneurship and women in business. And this is a four episode series highlighting the true story of madame CJ Walker.
I am supporting black business owners this week. This one was really fun for me because I truly
[00:10:00] believe that empowering people through business and voting with our dollars is so, so, so effective. There's definitely a lot of ways that you can donate your money to super important and effective organizations. But given that this is a global audience of listeners, I'm going to recommend eCommerce stores in particular, and Shopify, they have a Twitter feed going on right now, that are all Shopify stores that are black owned.
If you're someone that has a preference through learning by storytelling. The book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill is the story of an 11 year old girl who was abducted from her village in West Africa and sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. This is an incredible read for anyone who really needs to learn the painful truth about the history of slavery, Jared, and I read it together last year and , it's an amazing book. I'm going to be reading white fragility. It is a New York times bestselling book on why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism.
And lastly, the most uncomfortable thing I'm going to be doing this week. But something that I feel is so important is I'm having an intentional and structured conversation with my white friends about white fragility, about white privilege.
So we can all own it and talk about it and understand it. There is an amazing resource that we're planning to use that can actually facilitate this, which has conversations for you to share with each other about your own journey of white privilege. If you do prefer to do this alone, they also make for amazing journal prompts.
One of our very own freedom seekers, Cheryl Sutherland, shout out her businesses. Please note. She's a member of the freedom lifestyle community. She's also a black business owner. She aggregated a Google drive, filled with anti-racism and unlearning resources. She crowdsourced it from tons of people, which is so entrepreneurial and so badass and so meaningful.
I've recently shared it in my Facebook group for the freedom lifestyle, but I'm also linking it in the show notes for you. If that's more convenient. Cheryl had also previously submitted an ad for the freedom lifestyle to get her business on the show. I'm going to be ending the episode by playing her very own ad.
And you will also hear it in next week's episode. I'm taking things day by day as to what feels right and how I can personally contribute right now. My intention is to release next week's episode with Raymond or Assuri. However, I'm staying very open and I'm actively seeking out how I can use this platform to highlight our world's most pressing issues.
Well also being empowering and engaging and effective medium. I expect to do some things right in this process, but I expect to do more things wrong. I anticipate being called out and being held accountable for anything in this episode that was insensitive or could have been framed differently.
So I encourage you to do that. And I am open for that. This is the part of the process that is uncomfortable,
but I'm not here to be comfortable. We're here to change the world. So thank you so much for listening to this. I'll leave you with Cheryl.